Internet Access

Internet access has been an ongoing challenge and struggle. Our family has 6 people, all with laptops and internet needs and wants, and so we wanted to get the fastest and most unlimited speed available. As it turns out, most of the internet providers don’t have unlimited speed plans here, but they do have plans that cap at very high usage plans. We opted for the best we could get from Airtel. We were told that we would remain high bandwidth until and unless we exceeded 50 gig; at that point, we would be reduced to very slow speed. We have been told that 50 gig is a very high number, and that as long as we weren’t running an internet café on our account, we would never exceed this. (The “cap” is imposed apparently to prevent those sorts of abuses, like individuals re-selling bandwidth or running an internet café on a personal account.) The boys understood that there would be no video downloads or other mega-activities that chew up bandwidth.

Nonetheless, by the first or second week of each month, our speed was reduced to dial-up speeds and really, really slow. Amnon would repeatedly call customer service saying that there is NO WAY we have exceeded our quota, but the basic dialogue was:
They: Yes, you did.
We: No, we didn’t…
(What we believe has happened is that hackers have broken into our account, and perhaps *they* are now using our bandwidth for internet cafes or who-knows-what; despite the fact that we are “password protected.” We have notified the cyber-crime authorities here.)

Finally Jordan took matters into his own hands, and opted to instead transfer our service to a government-managed internet provider, which DID offer unlimited high speed access. We were cautioned by friends that their customer service, however, would be more like a government-run entity than a private entity; the incentives weren’t there for high levels of customer service. Jordan started the enrollment activity when Amnon and I were still in the US. It became a classic, Wizard-of-Oz, “bring me the broom of the wicked witch of the west.” They wanted all of the standard and reasonable pieces of identification, plus original copies of our lease, plus documents substantiating my employment at IBM in India. The breaking point was when they needed the original signature of our landlady; a scan, fax, or photocopy wouldn’t suffice. (Our landlady lives in Europe.)

Last week, the boys requested assistance from a policeman that Amnon had befriended when my wallet was stolen months back. The policeman kindly accompanied them to the internet provider’s office, and the rest of the process was incredibly smooth. The policeman also refused to accept any gift for his time and efforts. We now have lightning fast internet access at home. We are grateful and happy….but still perplexed at the thought that we needed to have a policeman friend assist us to make this work. We are, after all, just talking about subscribing to an internet service; we weren’t trying to get out of jail or something. (And add this story to our accumulating stories about how kind and helpful the police have been to us, vigorously rejecting any gifts from us….running counter to all the other stories people tell us about policemen here. Either others are exaggerating an ongoing mythology about police practices here, or we are somehow having a very different and more positive experience than everyone else.)